Apsis
by Polly Lynn
Summary: "She closes her eyes and he's everywhere. Words and scent. His voice. She swears she hears it. That she feels something more than the breeze coasting over her skin. More than things still fading, even now. He's everywhere." Post–For Better or Worse (6 x 23). A kind of sequel to "Perigee."
1. Chapter 1

Title: Apsis, Ch. 1

WC: ~1400

Summary: "She closes her eyes and he's everywhere. Words and scent. His voice. She swears she hears it. That she feels something more than the breeze coasting over her skin. More than things still fading, even now. He's everywhere."

A/N: This is a kind of sequel to "Perigee," which I accidentally posted as a WIP (I really intended it as a one-shot). It's post-For Better or Worse (6 x 23) and references Murder, He Wrote (5 x 04) and Probable Cause (5 x 05). This can probably be read independent of Perigee. It's two chapters. I'm just editing the second and will post it soon.

* * *

Apsis — /ˈapsis/ — noun — either of two points on the orbit of a planet or

satellite that are nearest to or furthest from the body around which it moves.

* * *

She dreams of him. Dreams, not nightmares, for the first time in all these weeks.

He comes to her, smiling. He leads her through the house. Not the first time. Not swaggering and showing off because he was nervous. Because he wanted badly for her to love this place. To love him, and they were so tentative for so long. She was so tentative. So unsure whether she could ever fit here.

But she dreams of the second time.

_Do over. _

A week after Tyson, he'd come to her. The end of another Friday with her bag packed and the car waiting.

_Castle, I can't just . . . _

_You can, Kate. We can. Please. Let's just . . . . A do over. _

And she had. They had. He'd taken the wheel again, and she'd tipped her seat back and hummed along to the low sound of the radio. She'd let the road unwind the last few weeks from her and tumbled from the car, smiling and reaching for him.

_Spectacular, Castle. Still spectacular. _

It's that time she dreams of. Scampering haphazard through rooms to hear every secret. Tugging stories from him about the first house he had here when Alexis was little. The sense of loss he felt when they gave it up, even though it was a tiny, falling-down mess by then.

_Not spectacular. _

But he kisses her, and she can taste the delight in the memory.

They visit all his rebellions here, in this house. Against an overbearing designer. His mother. Alexis. All the things he'd insisted on, whether they fit or not.

She dreams of the second time and wakes too soon to sunlight. Slowly. Reluctant with more than wine and tears and sleep that comes in brief stretches, ragged at the ends. Reluctant with the loss each new day brings.

His robe hangs in the bathroom, untouched. Everything in their room, still untouched. Martha had warned her. Held up her hands in the hallway, nodding at the long line of doors. _Whichever you like, darling. Whatever you need_.

But she can't imagine it. A room without a hundred memories of him. The ridiculous sleep mask on the bedside table, because the designer had cowed him into surrendering on blackout curtains. A stack of paperbacks. A different set from his city stand-bys against insomnia, but the same cracked spines and dog-eared pages. A water glass with his lip print that she holds in careful hands for too long before she turns the lights out. That she reaches for when sun touches her eyelids.

She can't imagine anything else.

She slips the robe on. She wraps her arms around herself and waits for the first tears of the morning to subside. She presses the sleeve to her mouth and inhales.

_I miss you_, she whispers. _I miss you._

* * *

There's coffee in the kitchen. Plates of things she passes by at first. Pastries and fruit and toast in some fancy device to keep it warm. A tempting array of bright jam jars. She circles back, though. Slides the small things she thinks she can stomach on to a bright white circle with its cheery rim of blue. _For Martha_, she tells herself, though she finds she's hungry. That the airy thumbnail cakes aren't dust in her mouth and the thick, sweet slather on a warm heel of bread is good.

She follows the breeze. Doors and windows flung open. An homage to him. Something he and Martha bickered about a hundred times, because he loves the salt air and she blames him for the toll it takes on her skin.

_He won't be happy 'till he sees me nailed to the prow of a ship headed out to sea, darling._

_It's one way to be rid of you, Mother. _

But it's all wide open now. All the places she's wandered through already.

There's a chair waiting for her at Martha's side. The heavy wooden adirondacks with the small table between them. She must have dragged them out herself. Far from the house with everything looking down on to the beach from the top of the hill.

Kate approaches quietly. Martha is still, eyes closed and face tipped up to the sun. Kate wonders if she's asleep, but a smile touches the corners of her mouth as the shadow of her body falls across the chair. She reaches out her hand, as heavy with rings as always. Kate presses her fingers in silent greeting and sits.

They watch the waves for a long while. They feel the weight of sun and wind on them. They nurse quiet and cups of coffee. Martha is the first to speak, though the words don't come soon or easy.

"You can stay, dear?"

"I can stay."

* * *

"Rest, darling." Martha says it over and over.

Whenever Kate rises to help. When she rouses herself and wanders from room to room, feeling like she should do something. She should help somehow.

But Martha presses her shoulder. She pats her cheek and hooks her hair behind her.

"Rest," she says.

She does. She curls herself in leather chairs. She stretches out on couches and eases herself into hammocks. She sprawls in front of cold fireplaces and breathes a canvas on every window to trace their initials and watch them fade away.

_KB + RC._

She leafs through books that fall from her hands when she finds a receipt. A ticket stub. Scrawled notes from before her time. Things from after. A torn-off scrap of something. Her name in his handwriting and nothing more. She wonders when it's from. If he missed her when he wrote it. If he was angry or hopeful or broken. She wonders about all these things, with her and without her. Placeholders.

She closes her eyes and he's everywhere. Words and scent. His voice. She swears she hears it. That she feels something more than the breeze coasting over her skin. More than things still fading, even now. He's everywhere.

She walks. Tight laps on the beach. She circles the house and frowns down at the pool. She longs for the weightlessness of it. Cool water on her fevered skin, but it frightens her. As though she might lose something by it.

As though she has anything to lose.

* * *

She goes still when Martha does ask for help. A Skype date with Alexis, and she's struggling. Rattled in a way Kate's never seen before. She's overwhelmed by passwords and updates. By his fingerprints framing the screen.

It needs a kind of bravery it's too hard to call up. Courage she needs for Alexis. For herself. To get through the day.

It's simple for Kate. It should be, except nothing is. It's heavy. Glass and metal and everything arranged just so. Just the way he insisted. His tabs fanning out across the browser. Honeymoon plans and Bigfoot. Strange things she doesn't have the faintest idea about. The last song he played, paused part way through.

She almost dials from his account. Her finger stabs at the profile picture at the last possible second. She's transfixed. It's him pulling a face and she remembers. Alexis laughing almost too hard to snap the shot.

She drags in breath. Thanks something nameless that she noticed in time. Her hands shake as she switches to Martha's profile, and all she can think is how_ awful _it could have been. Awful.

Kate is a blank. Washed out and empty by the time she hands it all over. She looks away. Doesn't turn back, though Martha's calling to her as she rushes from the room. As Alexis's voice sounds out, rough with grief. Older. So much older in just these few weeks.

_"Gram? _Gram!_ You're on time." _

She means to go far. She tells her legs to carry her away from here. To give them their privacy. She means to shield herself from their different sorrow. But she's spent by the time she reaches the door. She folds into a heap in the hallway, her palms on her thighs and her forehead pressed to the floor.

She can't make out words, though she's close enough. More than close enough. She hears the rise and fall of them. Martha's throaty rumble, Alexis's high staccato. But her mind is tired. It's so tired that all she can do is whisper apologies to the walls.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Apsis, Ch. 2

WC: ~2200, this chapter; 3600 total

Summary: "She closes her eyes and he's everywhere. Words and scent. His voice. She swears she hears it. That she feels something more than the breeze coasting over her skin. More than things still fading, even now. He's everywhere." Post–For Better or Worse (6 x 23), loose sequel to "Perigee."

* * *

"Up, Kate. Enough." Martha is short with her. Brusque as she reaches down an imperious hand.

Kate takes it. Between them, there's strength enough to move her. To carry her back over the threshold. The room is dim already. Sunset or rain, she doesn't know. Maybe just truth. The world showing itself for what it is. Dark now.

Martha hooks shutters and lowers blinds. She battens the place down and drapes something soft over Kate's body. She hesitates, then. Like every task she can think of is done and there's a decision to make. She sits as though it's an afterthought. Takes her place in one corner of the couch and eases Kate's head into her lap.

"Tell me," she says softly as she draws careful fingers through the tangle of Kate's hair. "Tell me all of it."

Kate doesn't think to speak. A demurral. That's all she opens her mouth to make. What is there to say?

But it comes spilling out. The worst thing. The one thing she has guarded against saying—lived in fear of even hinting at—since waking too many terrible mornings after. Waking, her tongue thick with sedatives and her eyes blinking slowly. Since she'd pushed the bottle of pills away from her. A ready scapegoat. A relief to everyone when she nodded along at last. When she capitulated. When she fell silent and repeated their words.

_The drugs. The shock. That's all. I know. He's gone. I know. Of course I know. He's gone. _

It comes spilling out now, though. The thing she won't—_can__'__t_—say to anyone, because it's crazy. But she says it now. With her eyes dry and wide open. With Martha looking down at her, calm and kind and heartbroken, it comes spilling out.

"I can't believe he's dead." There's relief in it. Wild, unchained, _blessed _relief. "I _don__'__t _believe it."

* * *

Martha listens. Strokes her cheek and murmurs for her to go on. She's attentive. Impassive. She listens, even though Kate's words scatter everywhere and circle back again and again, like one of his stories. She sounds like him. The irony of it fizzes on her tongue. She sounds just like him.

It's not a case. It's not reasons or evidence. It's solid, unshakable feeling. That he's always over her shoulder. That she's always turning to catch something he's just said. That she feels his breath on her skin just before her eyes open and the weight of him everywhere. It's the way he _haunts _her.

It sounds crazy. She knows every word sounds crazy. She waits for Martha's gentle admonition. For something sane and kind. Raw, because this must hurt her. How it must hurt, this mad insistence on a fantasy. This seductive lie.

_Darling. Don__'__t you think . . . _

_Katherine, it__'__s to be expected . . . _

_Kiddo, how I wish . . . . how we all wish . . ._

She waits, but it never comes. There's nothing but Martha's hands. The gentle lull of her voice, patient enough, then urging her onward. _And . . . ? _

Kate talks herself quiet. She breathes in and out, half expecting him to be gone. Half afraid that this is how she loses him for good. A catharsis of pity and fear. The last of him used up by her frantic grief. By her weakness in saying it out loud.

But he's there. The skim of his fingers and his breath in her hair. Wry commentary echoing just out of earshot. The scent of him that's more than just an unwashed robe or life interrupted here. In the house he died coming home to. He is as present in her as ever and she doesn't believe.

"Martha." She swallows hard. She stares unseeing up into the gloom. "I know how this sounds. I _know.__" _

"What do you think he'd say?" Martha asks at last. Her tone is even. Curious. "Richard. If he were here, what would he tell you?"

"He'd _love _this." Kate laughs. Unexpected, brilliant light piercing her heart, because he _would. _He'd love the confession rushing out of her. Her, of all people, pouring a tale into his mother's ear. He'd love her conviction that this mad thing is true. "He'd tell me that every culture going back to . . . to _dinosaurs _believes in soul mates and telepathy and _whatever. _And he'd pull some pseudoscientific _bull _out about chemicals and imprinting."

"Oh, he would, wouldn't he." Martha chuckles. Unexpected light for her, too. "At first, anyway. To pull your pigtails."

"To pull my pigtails," she echoes, remembering his brave face. The light breaking through when she told him in not so many words that it was nonsense. Nonsense to think he would go. That they wouldn't do this together. She lifts her eyes to Martha's. "He told you."

"Oh, darling. Of course he told me. He talked about you _constantly. _Right from the beginning. And that day . . . he was _devastated. _Marching off to fall on his sword." She sighs, sad and fond. "He loved you for so long in so many different ways. Long before even he knew."

The tears slip down Kate's cheeks. Martha dries them with some stiff scrap of scented fabric. An actual hanky, maybe.

"He admired you, Kate. He was in awe of how good you are at your job." Something steely creeps into Martha's voice. Something careful and measured that calls Kate back to herself. "And he would believe you."

It hits her with all the force of a blow. A terrible, circular, absolute truth. Castle would believe her. Of course he would.

Fear comes with it. The price of that truth is barbed possibility. Something that rends, because it's not just herself she's doing this to. It's not just madness and careful, _careful _silence. It's not just her world unraveling on the heels of one stubborn declaration. Indefinite leave. Pitying looks from Lanie and the boys. Burke's ugly office rug week after week and whispers that die when she walks into a room. It's not just the sad remnants of her life coming to an end.

This is his _mother _and it's unspeakable—_unspeakable__—_to do this to her. To tease up hope from nothing. There's nothing.

"Martha it's . . . I'm sorry." She struggles to sit up, but Martha's hand is firm at her shoulder. "It's just . . . everything is hard and . . . it's . . . it's typical to . . . "

"Is it?" Martha cuts in.

It throws her. The matter-of-fact question. The sharpness to it. "They say . . . a loss like this . . . "

"I know what they say. _Loss._" Martha holds up a hand. "Darling, you've lost your mother, your captain, your mentor . . . each and every one a tragedy. Is it typical? For you. Is this typical?"

Kate blinks. Her mouth opens and shuts. There's something painful fluttering in her chest. "No."

"So what do you make of that?"

Martha's tone is even. Reasonable and maddening. It's so like him—so like a thousand conversations with him—that sorrow comes crashing in again.

"That this is worse."

"Well, _that__'__s _certainly feeding his ego, wherever he is." Martha chuckles. "Really, though, dear. You know what he'd say about all this. How he'd wind you up with mystic mumbo jumbo about fate and what have you. What would you say back to him?"

She knows exactly what she'd say. She _hears_ it. The same conversation between them—him and her. She can hear it like the hum of a forgotten radio in a another room.

"That it's impossible. That I'm crazy." She clutches the throw hard at her waist. Her voice twists. Her stomach. All of her winding between the here and now and this thing she can't explain. "That I can't . . . Martha, I can't _do_ this."

Martha holds her until she quiets. It's not long. There's too little left in her for it to last.

"Now, Katherine." Her voice is lilting. Tinged with softness and humor. "I think we both know that you would never—not in a million years—admit to my son of all people that there was something you _can__'__t_ do."

Kate lets out a teary laugh. Hardly a breath. She's tired. She's so tired. She wants to drift in this cool darkness. She wants to rest. "Martha, you can't . . . you don't think . . ."

"Oh, darling, I can't make it true either." She falters. Grips Kate's hand and presses it to her lips. "I don't want to believe he's gone."

Kate turns her head. There's a hard, reluctant truth beneath the woman's words. "But you do. You think he is. You think I'm . . ."

"I think you are extraordinary, Kate Beckett." Martha smiles down at her. "And I think you're one _hell _of a cop."

"But this isn't . . ." She bites her lip. She struggles. "There's nothing . . . _everyone_ thinks he's dead."

"Except you," she notes quietly. "Dear, isn't it possible that there's nothing fantastic about this at all?"

"The investigation . . ." Kate trails off weakly. There's something dizzying in this. Arguing against herself. Against what she _wants _so badly to believe.

". . . happened without you while you were out of your mind with grief. And I know you've read every report." Martha quiets her with a gesture. "I know you've combed through every detail a hundred times. And I know your instincts are telling you that something isn't right here."

"Martha, I can't. There's nothing I can do." She swipes desperately at her face. "I can't do it alone, and I can't ask . . . God, Martha, I can't even believe I'm doing this to you."

"Kate, for all his investment in fantasy, my son was no fool. And he followed you down stranger paths than this." Martha's voice cracks for the first time. "Dr. Parish and those darling boys . . . even your Captain Gates . . . they have all followed you down stranger paths than this." The grim line of her mouth trembles and there's a glimpse of something that terrifies Kate behind it. Something like hope. Belief. "_That _is a truth that has kept you safe and gotten you out of impossible circumstances. It's kept each and every one of you _alive.__" _

"What if I'm wrong?" She holds Martha's hand tight. Presses their fingers to her mouth like she's trying to stop the words. Like the burden of belief might crush them both if she doesn't stop now. "Martha, what if I'm wrong?"

Martha eases her hand from Kate's. She smooths her hair back. There's infinite sadness in her smile. Infinite calm. "Then we go on mourning, darling."

* * *

They pass the weekend quietly. They come together and break apart.

Nothing changes for Kate. He's everywhere. More than memory._ More._

She lingers on Sunday. Martha stalls her with last minute excuses. She insists on feeding her. On things she's just remembered she wanted to show her.

Kate stills her with a quiet hand. "Martha, I don't mind."

"Thank you," she says, simply. "Thank you, dear."

She lingers.

They don't talk about it again.

Even when she leaves. Even when the sun sinks low enough that Martha's hands twist in a worried knot and she tries not to mention the coming dark. The road.

They stand in the drive with their heads bowed.

"You'll come back, darling." It's not a question. "Anytime."

"I'll come back." It's a promise.

They don't talk about it again.

* * *

She thinks about the loft as the stop and start of the city catches her. She thinks about sinking into their bed wrapped in something of his. Letting that familiar version of the light of the city fall over her as she stares up at the ceiling.

But she turns the wheel when the time comes. Hand over hand. She points herself away from there.

She parks. Goes through the motions. She checks for keys and phone. She slings her bag over her shoulder and climbs the stairs.

Her apartment is dark. Familiar in how strange it feels. She's spent so little time here in the last year.

But he's everywhere. Even here, though he lingers in the doorway. Shifting impatiently in the hallway and shouldering her overnight bag, eager to get her home.

_Home. _

She loves this place. She loves every piece she's built up and put together. She loves the hard memories and the good ones. The times when it was a haven. The times when it was lonely.

She loves it, but it's not home anymore. It's not home now.

It's a compromise. An anchor, because she can't believe she's doing this.

She paces, phone in hand. She stares down at it. She takes a breath and hits the call button.

Lanie answers before the second ring dies away, though her voice is low. Tired. _"Kate!"_

"Lanie. I'm sorry. I know it's late."

"_Kate, please. It's hardly even late for a school night." _

Kate smiles. A still, centered moment wrapped up in her friend's warm tone, but it doesn't last. She falters. She's afraid. She's so afraid of this, one way or the other.

"_Kate . . . ?" _

She falls then. He is everywhere, and she lets herself fall.

"Lanie, I need to talk to you about something."

* * *

A/N: I'm afraid that's it. I don't have any grand plan or plotted thing in the works. I'm unsure about having posted even this.


End file.
